1. Technical Field
The present invention concerns a method of manufacturing articles in hardenable metal material. The invention also concerns a manufacturing process and a production line.
2. Description of the Background Art
At present, many structural articles are products manufactured in the form of or based on components, details and/or blanks that are manufactured in material that can be processed and shaped in different ways and thereafter hardened by heating and subsequent quenching. The materials used are mainly iron and steel alloy or other metals. If the article after shaping has an open cross-section, then the hardening process comprising heating and quenching will exert great strain on the article. Stress often arises in the material and gives rise to deformations that are difficult to reduce. At present, the hardened article with open cross-section must often be straightened or reshaped in other suitable ways in order to be utilized. If the tolerances on shape are narrow, this will result in many hardened articles being discarded as seconds or being destroyed.
If the heating takes place in an arrangement containing an inductor and the articles have an open cross-section then the heat distribution within the articles will not be optimum. In turn, this will result in an uneven hardenature distribution in each article, which leads to additional risks of material strain arising.